Life in the US is More Complicated to Exploit Less Intell...

Coming from Europe, everything in the US seems more complicated, and set up with the purpose of making it hard for less intelligent people. Filing taxes is always the responsibility of the private citizen instead of the employee, the price of goods is displayed without sales tax and it's up to the citizen to calculate the real price, health insurance and car insurance are both overly complicated and full of clauses, financing and credit cards are literally shoved in your throat. Every proces...

 Why Automation Didn't Result in Increased Leisure in the ...

Back then, many theorists believed that a progressive reduction of work time was the inevitable byproduct of mechanization and increased efficiency. Even John M. Keynes, noted father of modern mass-consumption economics, argued in 1931 that, within two generations, industry would satisfy the real needs of humanity and lead to “three-hour shifts or a 'fifteen-hour week.” This reduction in work time, said Keynes, would allow us to “devote our further energies to non-economic purposes.” ...

 Rise of the Useless Class

As algorithms push humans out of the job market, wealth and power might become concentrated in the hands of the tiny elite that owns the all-powerful algorithms, creating unprecedented social and political inequality. Alternatively, the algorithms might themselves become the owners. Human law already recognizes intersubjective entities like corporations and nations as “legal persons.” Though Toyota or Argentina has neither a body nor a mind, they are subject to international laws, they ca...

 The Unnecessariat

In 2011, economist Guy Standing coined the term “precariat” to refer to workers whose jobs were insecure, underpaid, and mobile, who had to engage in substantial “work for labor” to remain employed, whose survival could, at any time, be compromised by employers (who, for instance held their visas) and who therefore could do nothing to improve their lot. The term found favor in the Occupy movement, and was colloquially expanded to include not just farmworkers, contract workers, “gig�...

 Information is the Power to Control

Information is a part of all systems of power. Top bureaucrats try to control information as part of their control over subordinates and clients. Corporations try to control information through trade secrets and patents. Militaries try to control information using the rationale of “national security.” So-called freedom of information— namely, public access to documents produced in bureaucracies—is a threat to top bureaucrats. In a society where not everyone can read and write, litera...